


My Name Next To Yours

by caspricorn



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, i was told to write a shit tonne of yearning and then this happened, post crimson flower, rating will probably change knowing me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27263572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caspricorn/pseuds/caspricorn
Summary: Several moments of silence pass that feel like endless minutes of inspection, and Edelgard surfaces from the other side either encouraging enough that Bernadetta doesn’t immediately excuse herself and flee the Council Chambers without so much as a terrible excuse, or enigmatic enough that Bernadetta knows an opening chapter when she sees one.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Bernadetta von Varley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	My Name Next To Yours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calciferian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calciferian/gifts).



The first time it happens, Edelgard thinks she has scared her. **  
**

Her closed fist meets the wooden surface of the table before her with a resounding thump loud enough to make several of the nobles, officials and vultures in the room jump in their seats. None more so than the man three spaces down from where Edelgard sits at the top of the table, ostensibly cowering into his chair like a scolded child. He stares at her with apprehensive patience, utter silence coating the previous cacophony of the room like an incredibly uncomfortable weighted blanket. Edelgard wields that silence like a weapon all by itself, releasing the blade only when she decides that the Count is suitably regretful.

"Make no mistake in thinking that this meeting is anything more than a polite formality, Count Thybar." Edelgard says, any aggression left behind but for the droplet of ink that had splattered out of its well when her hand hit the table. Her tone is as smooth as a blade, sharp edge pointed towards the man who sits in rapt attention, face flushed with shame and embarrassment. 

"This is not an avenue for debate. You will listen to the measures brought forth by Counsellor Varley, and you will comply with them, or I will have you and your worthless title removed as easily as plucking a tick from a dog. Do I make myself perfectly clear?" 

As if he expects his friends and cohorts to speak up on his behalf, Count Thybar's eyes flick from person to person across the room. Evidently, he hadn't learned before now that the nobility, at large, are cowards. Each person whose gaze he hopes to catch for assistance miraculously has their attentions elsewhere, fixed to cracks in the table or the way the Empire banners hanging by the windows tremble in the breeze that pools in from the windows. When finally his owlish blinking meets Edelgard's again, she watches his adam's apple bob as he swallows away any dissent he miht still hold. He nods submissively, and Edelgard's attention turns to Bernadetta. 

Any intent to bid her continue laying out the ongoing plans for bolstering the strength of the smaller communities outwith the reach of Enbarr itself falls still at her tongue as Edelgard takes in the sight before her. Bernadetta's lips are tightly pursed and her cheeks flushed a deep red. Her eyes, which had been fixed to Edelgard's display with rapt attention in moments before dart away like a skittish woodland animal under the gaze of a wolf. There are few things in this world that will twist a shameful knife in Edelgard’s nerves, but managing to regress Bernadetta into anything resembling the timid girl she was when they met so many years ago at Garreg Mach is one of them. 

Not that she thinks for a moment she was too harsh with Thybar. He will serve his uses. 

“Leave me.” Edelgard commands to a ripple of raised brows and fearful glances sent in Thybar’s direction. If the man quakes in his boots for the remainder of the day, Edelgard will consider it punishment enough. 

Bernadetta’s own shifting is nearly silent under the chorus of heavy wooden chairs screeching against stone, but where Edelgard’s eyes are trained upon her movements like an owl upon a field mouse, it doesn’t take long for her hand to raise, halting Bernadetta’s motions with the immediacy of a child expecting some kind of chastisation from a parent. It only serves to drive that hot knife of shame deeper into her chest. 

Edelgard doesn’t explain herself until the last of the satirically named Noble Council has vacated the room. Empty, the table extends longer than it ever did before, the roof ten times more unreachable. Voices echo now, and there’s a cool draft from the closed wooden door that chills the air. 

Even so, there’s comfort in shucking the persona: in releasing a breath and turning to Bernadetta in her chair, elbow resting on the arm and jaw on the heel of her hand. 

The mask is one that has been refined over years since before the war even began, but Edelgard never thought that it would begin to affect those closest to her. Bernadetta’s eyes seem to pointedly avoid hers, cowering under Edelgard’s full attention in a manner ill-befitting the girl who stood against swathes of enemies in a war. 

Edelgard reaches out, the tips of her gloved fingers ghosting Bernadetta’s chin, encouraging her to meet her eyes. She thinks she feels goosebumps through the silk, a shiver rippling down Bernadetta’s spine, and Edelgard wonders if she has finally had her first casualty of the post war landscape, where the Emperor she must be alienates the loved ones the girl behind the persona must be. 

“Bernadetta.” Edelgard says, her tone a practiced mix of firm and gentle: demanding to be listened to and heeded, but without threat. 

Bernadetta meets her eyes finally, and her cheeks flush a pale pink. It’s clear that she aches to look away. It’s a good sign that she doesn’t. 

“Have I made you uncomfortable?” 

The rose dusting Bernadetta’s cheeks deepens harshly, and she squirms in her seat. 

“No! No, oh—oh no, did you stop the meeting just to ask me that?” 

Bernadetta’s face contorts in a terribly visual representation of the shame Edelgard herself had been feeling moments before. Conversely, it soothes Edelgard’s own, if only because she has no reason to doubt someone who wears face value directly on the downward curve of her lips, and the crinkle between her brows. 

Edelgard lays a hand on Bernadetta’s forearm, and Bernadetta’s attention snaps rapt—lips pursing tightly like a stopper in a bottle of wine over eager to spill. 

“When I looked to you before, you looked away from me.” 

It becomes painfully clear the moment Edelgard stops speaking that Bernadetta wants to look away. To her great credit and despite the way her peripheral vision must surely be glowing with the warmth of her blush, she doesn’t. Her lips part to speak, close again, and then part for a second time before huffing out a frustrated breath that sounds something close to a pant. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” Bernadetta insists, pursing her lips between phrases and disposition becoming ever more earnest the more she speaks. In years past, Edelgard would have said that Bernadetta says as much to convince herself. That’s how she knows that in this instance, it’s purely for her benefit, not Bernadetta’s. 

Edelgard thinks that, for just a brief shining moment, she sees a flicker of a smile in the corner of Bernadetta’s lips. 

“It’s that—it’s _just_ that, when you were talking to Count Thybar, you do this thing where—” 

Bernadetta swallows. She squirms in her seat again, eyes finally drifting down over the oppressive heat of the damnable cheeks that might give everything away were Edelgard’s concern for her not so powerful that all wisdom that might put together all the pieces and realise what has occurred here is superseded by her worry. 

Bernadetta is floundering, half words and unfinished sentences falling from her lips like confetti. Instead of letting her struggle alone, Edelgard opts to reach out again. She turns on her side in her chair, elbow resting on the arm and her hand lifting to her teeth. In a motion that only serves to quicken Bernadetta’s breath and turn the tips of her ears pink now too, Edelgard bites her glove free from her hand, and reaches out with the back of it. 

“Bernadetta.” 

Concern tinges the gentleness of Edelgard’s voice with an edge that reminds herself of Mercedes, picking through the symptoms and rushing towards the most likely cause. Bernadetta’s skin feels as though it’s on fire, her breath short and her complexion starkly pale beneath the crimson of her blush. Something isn’t right at all. 

“Are you ill? You’re burning up—”

“No! No! No, no, no!” 

All at once, both of Bernadetta’s hands are clasped around Edelgard’s wrist and pulling her hand away from her forehead. Edelgard watches her stare at her palm as though surprised at her own outburst, only to squeeze her grip and double down on her forcefulness—a sight that is more than welcome to be seen. Bernadetta shakes her head and, staring pointedly at Edelgard’s fingers as though her face being out of focus between them makes this easier, begins to speak. 

“It’s just that, when you do that thing that you do, where you speak and the whole room stops moving like time itself wants to hear what you have to say, and people stop talking and listen, even the ones that used to talk over everyone, it’s—!” 

Bernadetta only falters for a moment. Edelgard holds her breath and gives her space to breathe, to reposition herself with one leg crossed over the other and strands of her hair shielding her face. By now, her grip on Edelgard’s wrist has gentled, thumbs kneading her pulse like a kitten might make biscuits in a blanket. Bernadetta sucks a breath between her teeth. 

“It’s nice. It makes me feel so safe, you know? Like there’s no-one in Fódlan more powerful than you, except that you use it to stop the stupid people from talking and doing things that are bad for everyone that isn’t them. And it’s—” 

What colour that had drained from Bernadetta’s face while she spoke has resurfaced again, but this time Edelgard thinks that she understands. How embarrassing to have missed a cue such as this, so brazenly worn on Bernadetta’s sleeve, and offered out to Edelgard now like a treat on a silver platter. 

“It’s scary.” Bernadetta coughs, managing to look into Edelgard’s eyes and revealing a little glimmer that has nothing to do with fear, and everything to do with something that isn’t exactly very far away from it. “In a good way. I like watching you scare stupid men. You’re like—like the—like the hero in a story I wrote back when, when—” 

Edelgard’s free hand shifts over, curling around Bernadetta’s and drawing her stuttering to a close. She has gleaned quite enough cues to regard this explanation with a level of amusement, and just the slightest dusting of pink over her own cheeks. Like the bastard she is, though, she gives very little away. 

“That’s enough, Bernadetta. I think I understand.”

A beat of quiet. 

“You—you do?” 

Bernadetta’s gaze lifts, fear in her eyes as though there’s a question on the tip of her tongue that will be answered by Edelgard’s expression alone. Several moments of silence pass that feel like endless minutes of inspection, and Edelgard surfaces from the other side either encouraging enough that Bernadetta doesn’t immediately excuse herself and flee the Council Chambers without so much as a terrible excuse, or enigmatic enough that Bernadetta knows an opening chapter when she sees one. 

Edelgard stands and Bernadetta needs no invitation to follow. A few cursory words are traded, detailing the meetings Edelgard will be tied by in the coming afternoon, an apology that the next time they speak will likely be the coming morning. Edelgard bids Bernadetta a good day and assures her that should she require it, she is only a call away. Bernadetta leaves in a flurry of _goodbye_ ’s and _don’t forget about tea in the garden_ ’s, and from the shadows approaches a tall and imposing figure. 

What remnants of worry Edelgard had had over Bernadetta’s fear of her resurfacing is quickly ushered away by Hubert’s footsteps alone: his presence testament to Bernadetta’s comfort around them both where her fear of him had once been far greater than her fear of Edelgard. 

“I believe they call it a crush, Lady Edelgard.” Hubert says, cutting through the silence with that soothing thrum of his. 

Edelgard slumps back in her chair, hand turning into a fist and bare knuckles rapping on the wooden surface of the arm, nails picking at the carved roses along the inside.

“Where did you learn a term like that?” She asks, pointedly not bothering to meet his gaze.

Hubert snorts derisively in the way only he can in Edelgard’s presence, with meaning that far supercedes the insubordinate nature of the sound. Edelgard knows that Dorothea taught him as much, and Hubert knows Edelgard is avoiding the meat of the conversation. 

Quiet falls again. It’s a small mercy offered from Hubert to Edelgard where in previous years he might have questioned her aptness to encourage such frivolous, emotional displays. It’s a colour she enjoys on him now that they’ve settled into something of a relationship where the years spent being friends holds priority over Emperor and advisor. 

“Come, we have made Ferdinand wait long enough.” Edelgard finally says, standing and retrieving the glove she had pulled from her hand in the moments prior. She can feel Hubert’s eyes watching her as she tugs them on, taking her time settling the silk between her fingers and tucking the wrist band beneath the hem of her coat. When she finally looks up to meet Hubert’s gaze, he makes no effort to hide the ghost of a smile that’d be nigh invisible to anyone outside of Bernadetta, Edelgard and Dorothea. 

“Wearing the lilac threaded gloves again, Lady Edelgard?” He comments, undeterred by the roll of her eyes. “Bernadetta must surely be flattered that the Emperor herself is so eager to advertise her craftsmanship.” 

“No less eager than the terrifying Hubert von Vestra himself.” Edelgard shoots back. His hands are laced behind his back, but Edelgard doesn’t need to see them to know that the returning strike will not miss its mark. “Black with gold thread today is it?” 

Hubert laughs, a hand raising in mock surrender. 

The thread of his glove glints golden in the sunlight. 

**Author's Note:**

> callie was thinking about commissioning a bernigard fic and i told her i'd do it for free. and then i didn't. and then i did! 
> 
> ty for reading and sorry to this callie in advance for how long it'll probably be between chapters.


End file.
